OTTAWA - Second-degree murder convictions have been upheld in what's been called one of Canada's worst child-abuse cases.
The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear an appeal in the case of seven-year-old Randal Dooley.
The court, as usual, did not give reasons.
A jury convicted the boy's father and stepmother, Tony and Marcia Dooley, in 2002 of murdering the boy.
Randal had wasted to just 41 pounds and had 13 fractured ribs, a lacerated liver, four brain injuries, and head-to-toe bruises when he died in 1998.
Last December, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the couple's argument that they should be granted a new trial because the judge made legal errors which resulted in jury verdicts based on emotion, not evidence.
